After the Storm
by Peachdreamsandperseus
Summary: What if it wasn't Mary that a certain Mr Pamuk took a shine to that night in 1912? For years, Sybil has carried the shame and the secret of what happened before he died and it's the last obstacle she needs to overcome before she can finally accept her true feelings for her dearest friend. Will he despise her, or will he be the strength she's always sought? Very M for subject matter


_**Another Tumblr fic war promt, this time from The Yankee Countess who asked:**_

_**"It wasn't Mary Pamuk was after, but Sybil; when Tom comes to Downton in 1913, he finds out through a conversation the two of them are having the harrowing experience poor Sybil went through. She thinks it's all her fault, that she must have done or said something to "tempt" him; Tom is adamant that she is blameless and tries to provide some soothing comfort"**_

_***Deep breath* okay - this was SO hard to write but I think I've dealt with such a sensitive subject with grace and dignity. I don't think it's as bad as it could have been though (and my original plan was very bleak indeed). Don't ask me about the book Sybil found - I have no idea what it is but I do know that those Victorians were randy buggers. **_

_**Dubious consent and trigger warnings in abundance - easily the darkest thing I've ever written but it does have a happy ending with the possibility of an additional chapter to follow.**_

* * *

She bites her lip as that strange tingling sensation between her thighs returns and her entire body is flushed with warmth. It's always like this whenever she gets to these particular parts of her book - the hero caught in a passionate tryst with his lover, indulging in the most sinful of acts (who knew that a man could do that with his tongue? More to the point, she seems to enjoy it). There's a knock at the door and she quickly stuffs the book back under her pillow - if her parents or sisters knew of her reaching material of choice then, not only would they disapprove, but she'd also be mortified.

"Are you coming down, darling?" Mary asks as she pops her head around the door. "We have company tonight."

Sybil nods. "I'll be there in a second," she replies with a smile, hoping that the blush on her cheeks doesn't give her away. "I just need to get my gloves." Her sister leaves her then and she crosses the room to retrieve her gloves from the back on top of her dressing table, studying her reflection in the mirror as she pulls them up her arms. Her breasts have grown since the last time she wore this dress, exposing a little more flesh than is probably deemed acceptable but it's too late to do anything about it now. She hates the fact that her body is continually changing and she can't keep up with it - the most recent of these changes is that she's finally lost the puppy fat from her stomach and hips but, as the dress shows, it's gone straight to her bust. Her mother keeps telling her that it's just her age, that things will slow down eventually, and that both her sisters were exactly the same at sixteen (though she looks at Mary whom she so much aspires to be like and finds that hard to believe). With a sigh, she adjusts her necklace and follows the rest of the family down to dinner.

_**-xxx-**_

The heat is stifling and the room won't stop spinning. She feels lightheaded and she's can't really remember much which is strange considering she felt fine earlier. She hasn't even had all that much to drink either and yet she feels exactly the same as she did that very first time she'd been allowed wine at dinner and had overdone it a bit. Excusing herself, she steps out of the drawing room and into the cool darkness of the hallway, taking a deep breath as she tries to compose herself.

"Are you feeling alright, my lady?" a heavily accented voice asks from behind her.

Sybil turns on unsteady legs to see one of their many guests for the evening - Mr Kemal Pamuk, attaché to the Turkish ambassador - standing there behind her. "Yes, I'm quite alright thank you," she says, sighing and pressing a hand to her forehead. "Gosh, it's quite hot in there, isn't it? I think I'm just going to need a moment."

She tries to take a step forward towards the doors where she can step outside for some fresh air but, the next thing she knows, she's falling towards the floor only to be caught in a pair of strong arms. "Th... thank you," she stutters, staring into his eyes - his gaze is so intense that it's overwhelming for reasons she doesn't understand and it's hard to look away... and that smile, so dazzling that it almost blinds her. They had been seated next to each other at dinner and he had been delightful company - they'd spoken about the Albanian talks to which his presence here in Britain was key, of the differences between their respective cultures and finally of one of her most beloved subjects, art. She'd blushed prettily and given him a shy smile just as she'd been taught to do as a soon-to-be society girl when he'd remarked upon Botticelli's Venus and how she could easily pass for the great painter's muse.

"On second thoughts," Sybil says, pulling away from him as she finally feels steady enough to stand on her own two feet. "I think I'm going to go up. Please give my excuses for me?"

Pamuk nods. "Of course," he says, taking hold of Sybil's hand and bringing it up to his lips. "Goodnight, Lady Sybil."

It had been easy to fall under the spell of the handsome foreigner and Sybil was by no means the only one. So charmed by the diplomat was everyone that they failed to see him slip a little something into the drink of the youngest of his host's daughters.

_**-xxx-**_

She's lying in bed, desperately trying to focus on the pages of her book. It's useless though because the words are all blurred together and her head is still throbbing. As before, she tries to hide it when she suddenly hears her door open but is rather unpleasantly surprised to see, not her mother or either of her sisters coming to check on her like she thought, but Mr Pamuk.

"You shouldn't be here," she gasps, getting to her feet.

He quietly closes the door and steps towards her with a tender smile. "What can I say? So bewitched am I by you that I couldn't sleep knowing that you were just a few doors away from me."

"Your room is on the other side of the house," she corrects, struggling to get her words out properly.

Pamuk chuckles. "Then I must be truly enchanted," he says, his voice low and seductive. After Mary had spurned him in favour of that great pretender from Manchester, and he'd decided that he had no interest in... whatever the other one was called, the Turk had set his sights on Sybil - sweet, innocent Sybil - and what better memento to take with him than the flower of such true English rose.

"What are you reading?" he asks, cornering her so that she's backed right up against the side of her bed and seeing the discarded book poking out from beneath the sheets.

"Nothing," Sybil lies.

He reaches round her then, his arm brushing so very deliberately against her hip as he reaches for the book. His eyes widen as he flicks through it and his lips curl up into a somewhat unnerving smirk.

"My my," he half laughs. "You English are nowhere near as repressed as they say you are when it comes to acts of intimacy. Tell me, my lady, do you desire to know how these things feel? Are you not in the slightest bit curious as to how the forbidden fruit tastes?"

She can't deny that she is - that strange feeling in her sex is testament enough to that. It's an ache that she's tried to relieve once or twice as she reads, using her hand to bring herself closer to a release like the man in the story does to his lover. Each and every time though, she's stopped just as she feels it's becoming too much almost as though she's scared of what's going to happen or guilt overwhelms her and she feels like she's committing a terrible sin.

"I..."

He kisses her then - it's so sudden and unexpected and she's powerless to resist him. It's not unpleasant, but it's forceful and she doesn't experience any of those things that she thought you were supposed to feel when you were kissed by a man.

"You taste like summer," he whispers against her ear. "I can show you those things, my darling, but you can still be a virgin for your husband... you wouldn't be the first woman to succumb to your lust and why should us men be allowed all the fun?"

When he kisses her again, the pair of them tumble down onto her bed. From thereon, things escalate far quicker than she could ever have imagined.

_**-xxx-**_

Sybil sits on the running board of the Renault in top of the chauffeur's jacket that he's kindly lent to her to stop her beautiful white summer dress from being ruined.

Oh the chauffeur, how ever would she live without him?

Only he's not just the chauffeur because, aside from Gwen, he's her dearest friend and she can't believe that he's only been in her life for just over a year.

Yet it feels like a lifetime.

He listens to her and values her opinion, genuinely interested in what she has to say rather than just acting so to be polite. Branson is her rock, her confidant and her teacher, though there's still one secret that she keeps hidden from him. She keeps it hidden from everyone, that secret of what happened the night Kemal Pamuk came to stay in the autumn of 1912. Saying that though, the latest tragedy to rock her family might just be the last straw before it all comes spilling out.

"It's my fault," she whispers tearfully, fidgeting with her handkerchief. "This happened because of me."

Tom steps out from in front of the car where he's been working under the bonnet and wipes his hands on an old rag. "What happened to Lady Grantham was an accident," he says. "A tragic accident that nobody could have done anything to stop."

Sybil shakes her head. "No... you don't understand," she snaps. "I... I killed a man... and now my brother's dead before he was even given the chance to live. My family is being punished for what I did."

Tom sits down beside her and, before he can even stop to think about what he's doing, he takes one of her hands in both of his and squeezes it tightly. "You're not making any sense," he says. "This is just your grief talking." He knows how she must be feeling right now, having lost both a younger brother and sister himself.

"No... I'm making perfect sense. I killed someone... he... he was with me... and then he died."

One look into those curious and confused blue eyes of his and she begins telling him everything. She can see his anger building, the knuckles on his free hand turning white as he clenches his fist.

"Goddammit!" he yells, getting to his feet and flinging an empty glass bottle of turpentine against the wall as she gets to the part where they ended up on her bed. "Did he... did he touch you?"

With his back to her, he doesn't see her nod. "There were... things... that he did to me. Things that I admit I was curious about and I didn't protest. A part of me knew that it was wrong though and I knew that I should have stopped him but I just... I couldn't. It was afterwards that I felt... oh, you're a man, I shouldn't need to tell you what it was that I felt... but it was there against me and that's when I told him no."

Tom rests his head against the wall, somehow finding that it's the only way he can stay calm. "But did he?"

"He tried to," she admits. "But I just kept on kicking him, he only yielded when I scratched his cheek and left him bleeding."

Tom lets out a half-hearted laugh then. "That's my girl," he thinks to himself.

"That's when he left. He called me a good for nothing slut and then went back to his own room where he was found dead the next morning."

"So... you didn't actually kill him then?"

"But what if it was something I did?"

Tom sighs and finally turns to face her then, returning to her side and kneeling down on the dusty floor beside her - her faithful servant always falling before her feet. "There are many 'what if's' in the world but if we dwell on them to long then we begin to miss the things that we have and all that's beautiful in the world. Trust me, this world is cruel and we need as much of that beauty as we can get. And what he called you... it's disgusting."

"But wasn't he right?" she asks, fresh and silent tears trickling down her cheeks. "I tempted him and led him on. The neck of my dress was cut too short and I'd had too much wine at dinner and..."

"Sybil, Sybil, look at me," Tom pleads, calling her by her name not for the first time in their unconventional relationship. "This has nothing to do with you. What he did was wrong. It was more that wrong... it was despicable. There's no shame in being curious about the things that you were, nor is it shameful to want them despite what convention says... but you shouldn't have had to experience them with someone who took advantage of you like that and... God, I wish I'd been there... I would have killed the bastard myself with my bare hands if I'd caught him touching so much as a single hair on your head."

Sybil looks at him then, straight back into his eyes which seem to be the one place she's certain to find comfort before asking him a question that takes them both a little by surprise. "Have you been with a woman?"

Tom nods. "Yes," he admits sincerely. "More than one, but I would never, ever, ever do anything that she didn't want to and nor should you feel as though you have to do anything either."

"But... won't it be my duty when I'm someone's wife?"

"Bugger duty," Tom scoffs. "It should never be a duty and, when it's right, there really is no other feeling quite like it."

Sybil's lips curl up into the first hint of a smile that he's seen all day. "It's the reason why they call it making love."

He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair. "I think that's the very poetic version, yes. Marry for love, milady... marry for love and you can't go wrong."

Sybil glances down into her lap then and bites her bottom lip. "He was my first kiss too... I can't say that that was exactly how I imagined it either."

"That should be with somebody who loves you too," replies Tom - he knows that it's not necessarily true, but it just seems like the right thing to say in this situation.

Sybil nods in agreement. "My palms will sweat," she says. "And my heart feels like it's racing and is going to burst out of my chest. I catch my breath whenever I see him and there are butterflies in my stomach. I make excuses just to try and spend time with him hoping that today will be the day that he finally..."

Her words are cut off as Tom kneels up, taking her face in his hands and pressing his lips to hers - unlike the last time, she feels everything that she's heard whispered and read about in books and so much more. She opens her mouth to him, yielding to his tongue as it makes contact with hers making her moan in delight. She doesn't know it at this moment, but he's thinking that he's overstepped the mark and thinks himself a hypocrite for taking advantage of her when she's at her most vulnerable, but she'll later tell him that that isn't the case at all - the final wall protecting her heart has been torn down at long last and she's more than ready to welcome him in and never let him go. In kissing him, she has found the missing piece needed to make her whole, a salve for old wounds and a way of burying the past.

"Tom," she whispers, resting her forehead against his as they pull apart at last. Hearing the sound of his given name on her lips for the first time is like the music of angels to his ears and he's more certain than ever that this woman is his everything. "Could you love me? Even now that you know what I am?"

"If by that you mean that I know you're a kind, beautiful, and just generally the most wonderful woman I've ever had the privilege to meet then I'd say I'm already head over heels in love with you."

"Good," Sybil smiles. "Because I'm already head over heels in love with you too. Though, I think we should... just to make sure..." she tilts her head towards his and kisses him again and, in that moment, absolutely nothing else matters and she thinks she's finally found the strength to fly.

In a tiny village just north of the Scottish border, Mr Tom Branson, son of the late Mr and Mrs Edward Branson and Lady Sybil Crawley, third daughter of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, are married in secret within the month...

**To Be Continued?**


End file.
